Rice bound with saffron yogurt and egg yolks, layered around spiced chicken and barberries, and baked into a golden cake that is turned out and cut into wedges.
Untested: not yet made in this kitchen. It is here for the Rice section’s regional pages and is adapted from the source named in the Notes.
Ingredients
Candied barberries
- 1 cup (112 g) dried barberries
- 2 tablespoons light olive oil
- 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
Tachin
- 3 cups full-fat plain yogurt (a runny variety is best)
- ⅛ to ¼ teaspoon saffron powder
- 3 tablespoons kosher salt, plus more (see Notes)
- 3 tablespoons bottled lemon juice
- 2 large egg yolks
- 1 small whole chicken (under 2 lb), skinned and quartered, or 1½ lb skinless bone-in chicken breasts
- 1 large yellow onion, medium diced
- 1 tablespoon ground turmeric
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- ½ cup barberries, soaked and drained
- ½ cup kosher salt, for the parboiling water
- 4 cups jasmine rice, washed and rinsed once
- ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 cup of the candied barberries, for garnish
- Light olive oil
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Directions
Key ingredients
Black Pepper · Cinnamon · Olive Oil · Salt · Turmeric
- Candy the barberries. Soak 10–25 minutes and drain. Flash them in the oil over medium heat with 2 tablespoons of the sugar, turn off the heat, scatter the last tablespoon of sugar over them and let rest.
- Saffron yogurt. 4–6 hours ahead, or overnight, stir the saffron into the yogurt and refrigerate uncovered.
- Chicken. Brown the onion in about 4 tablespoons light olive oil, 5–7 minutes. Stir in the turmeric, then coat the chicken in it. Add ½ cup water, boil 5 minutes, then cover and simmer about 30 minutes.
- Parboil. Boil 5 quarts water with ½ cup salt. Parboil the rice only 3–4 minutes, since the oven finishes it. Drain, rinse cold and cool.
- Shred the chicken off the bone and toss it with the reduced liquid, the cinnamon and the soaked barberries.
- Bind. Heat the oven to 450 °F. Season the yogurt with the salt and lemon juice, tasting as you go, beat in the yolks, and fold in the rice.
- Layer. Oil a deep 11 × 13-inch dish with the extra-virgin olive oil. Spread half the rice, then the chicken with a ½-inch border, then the rest of the rice.
- Bake. Cover with foil. Bake 30 minutes at 450 °F, then 45 minutes at 350 °F, rotating halfway.
- Serve. Rest 10 minutes, invert onto a platter, garnish with the candied barberries and cut into wedges.
Notes
Source Adapted from Nasim Alikhani with Theresa Gambacorta, “Saffron Yogurt Cake with Chicken (Tachin ba Morgh),” Epicurious (2023).
A caution on the source’s salt Three tablespoons of kosher salt for 3 cups of yogurt reads very high. The method says to season “with the salt and lemon juice, tasting and adjusting as needed,” so treat the listed amount as a ceiling and add it gradually.
Rice The source specifies jasmine rice, unusual against the long-grain rices Persian cooks usually assume; it gives no reason.
Tahchin is not tahdig Tahchin is a dish of its own — rice set with yogurt, saffron and egg — not a crust under another rice. This version is baked; stovetop versions exist.
The Rice section’s Persia and Central Asia page (/rice/persia-and-central-asia/) covers the history and technique behind this dish.